Honestly, is it really beginning to look a lot like Christmas? Methinks not, as Charles Dickens might have said. These days, the calendar and the commercials remind us. And we may be getting our decorations up. And for those of us who prepare our hearts for the Christ Child’s arrival, we can look for cues in carols and readings. Yet our hearts long for so much more. Because we are, in this, an advent of yearning, reconciling loss with gain. Preparing Our Hearts Means Inventorying Losses and Gains This reckoning is twofold. Advent is indeed a season of anticipation. It consists of the four Sundays preceding Christmas. Generally defined, it…